Will Nukes Your Neighborhood

Ok, what happens in The Great Nuclear War of 1975's aftermath? Millions of refugees are scattered across the nation, a great ring of them settling down outside the cities. Some find shelter, some build it, some fight for it, some are turned away and die of radiation and cold.

There's no food shortage in the winter of 1975-76. Between the pantry, grocery stores, distribution warehouses and government stocks there's actually more than enough to eat. Gas is rationed but available. The military, much of it returned from Europe, helps maintain order.

By the spring the government is getting into action, building camps, organizing people, sending them to places where' they're needed and can be managed. Some will find work on farms, some clearing rubble. The electrical grid gradually comes back on line for maybe a third of the nation. In time local TV stations renews broadcasting. In existing towns libraries become civic centers.

Refugees settling down in camps will do so first in tents, later in shotgun style houses built by the feds, row on row of them. Eventually plumbing will be installed and then electricity. The temporary houses will become homes. New factories and workshops are built where the people are. Those refugee camps become towns.

A six year old who survives with his parents will have vague memories of the night of the attack. Then walking, finally settling down someplace, being bored and then being hungry during a long winter. In the spring he'll work in the fields and be disappointed when he's pulled out for a half day of school twice a week. His clothes will wear out and he'll remember wearing ill fitting shirts and short pants made by his mother. Those pants will be darned and lengthened for two years and then torn into rags. He'll have toys, old ones, salvaged from someplace. Saturday night movies projected onto the barn are a treat. He won't have a great education but he'll be able to read and write, do fractions and percentages. In time he'll forget everything about the old world. When he grows up, shorter and thinner than his father, he'll move on someplace and find work of his own.